Chsristmas Cookies

[BoardMaster]

Christmas is never complete until I make Grandma Morgan's Sugar Cookies. The sweet aroma of baking cookies brings many memories. We would stop at their home on the way to my parent's house. When Grandma knew we were coming she would have her flower painted glass cookie jar full of frosted and sprinkled sugar cookies. She made them for the great grandkids, but we were usually able to sneak a couple. I thought cookies have always been around, but I found out that is not true. I was shocked! I had to find out for sure.

I thought cookies like God had always been there for our comfort. Not so. God yes, cookies no. Cookies first appeared around the 7th Century in what was then the Persian Empire. Cookies need sugar, usually, and the Persians figured out how to process sugar from reed-like plants. The cookie itself was an accident. When women used wood without the modern convenience of a thermometer, they had to have some way to gauge if the oven was hot enough to bake the cake. So they would plop a small' amount of batter in the oven to check the temperature. These yummy concoctions were called koekje by the Dutch, meaning "little cakes". People soon discovered how convenient they were, the cookies were easy to carry when traveling and were somewhat nutritious. So my next step in this cookie adventure was to find an old recipe to see if I could make them. Well,

I found a recipe in the whatscookingamerican.net/History however there is a problem. It is written ih old English,
but thought I would share it with you anyway. One pound fugar boiled flowly in half pint of water, fcum well and cool, add 1 tea fpoon perlafh, diffolved in milk, then two and a half pounds of four, rub in 4 ounces of butter and two large fspoons of finely powdered coriander feed, wet with above; make rolls half an inch thick and cut to the fhape of pleafe; bake fifteen or twenty minutes in a flank oven — good for three weeks.

(Yes, the spelling is correct, but my spell check went crazy, in Old English, "f' had the "s" sound.)

So guess since I do not have a "flank" oven or any "fugar" or "four" I will have to stick to Grandma's recipe. Oh, by the way have you had your cookie allotment for the year. According to kitchenproject.com, each person eats 300 cookies annually. If you are short on your allotment, better get to munchin'.

Alta Ann West, Curator